Sir J. William Dawson said of some writers and their theories: "To launch a clever and startling fallacy, which will float a week and stir up a hard fight, seems as great a triumph as the discovery of an important fact or law; and the honest student is distracted with the multitude of doctrines and hustled aside by the crowd of ambitious groundlings." (Story of the Earth and Man, 313.)
Evolution has much to say for itself, but, as we see, it is all of the nature of circumstantial evidence. This seems to the non-scientific mind as strange for anything called science, which we have been accustomed to think means something known or proven. We have been accustomed to see cases thrown out of court when presenting no evidence and to fare badly in general on mere circumstantial evidence. However, as Evolution is so persistent for a hearing, we must examine what it has to advance for our consideration. Its arguments are drawn from Geology, Classification, Distribution of Plants and Animals, Morphology and Embryology.
THE ARGUMENT FROM GEOLOGY.
The argument from this science is that the fossils appear in the strata of the earth in advancing order, the simplest first, and more complex afterwards. The assumption is that the higher came from the lower, by a chain of infinitesimal changes, through a long series of ages. Now the facts are not as claimed. We will show this later. But admitting that they are, the argument is wanting.
1. All this is pure assumption. No such changes are known in existing species to have ever taken place, and the assumption that these changes took place in geologic ages is wholly unwarranted. If it cannot be predicated of the animals we see and know, how can it be asserted of a period millenniums ago?
2. Mere succession is not evolution. The coming in orderly succession is evidence of some plan but not necessarily of evolution. An intelligent Creator would work in the same way, especially if he had intelligent beings to instruct thereby, at the time or afterwards.
3. Evolution in comparing the successive comings of the rocky strata and the fossil creatures, compares two kinds of things that cannot be made analogous. Rocks are not produced by evolution, the higher growing out of the lower, as is claimed of species. That certain species appeared with the lower rocks and strata, and higher orders with later rocks and strata only proves of one, as of the other, an advancing order of production but tells nothing of the cause of either.
4. We are supported in these doubts as to the value of Evolution's argument from Geology by the fact, that many of the most eminent geologists deny any proof of evolution in their chosen science.
Sir Roderick Murchison said, "I know as much of nature in her geologic ages as any living man, and I fearlessly say that our geologic record does not afford one syllable of evidence in support of Darwin's theory." The great Swiss geologist, Joachim Barrande states, "One cannot conceive why in all rocks whatever and in all countries upon the two continents, all relics of the intervening types should have vanished.... The discordances are so numerous and pronounced, that the composition of the real fauna seems to have been calculated by design for contradicting everything which the theories (of Evolution) teach us respecting the first appearance and primitive evolution of the forms of life upon the earth." (Quoted by Winchell, in Doctrine of Evolution, p. 142.)
Prof. Conn, an evolutionist, admits the presence of many facts disclosed by geology which oppose the theory of Evolution. He says, "In the earliest records geology discloses, we find not a few generalized types but well differentiated forms, nearly all the sub-kingdoms as they now exist, five-sixths of our orders, nearly an equal proportion of sub-orders, a great many families and some of our present species. All this is a surprise and an unexplained problem." Such a result, he says, is not what Evolution would lead us to expect. All the important classes of animals made their appearance without warning. (Evolution of To-day, pp. 6, 100, 103, 118.)
Haeckel writes, "We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that various groups have from the time of their first appearance, burst out into an exuberant growth of modification of form, size and members, with all possible, and one might almost say, impossible shapes, and they have done this within a comparatively short time, after which they have died out not less rapidly." (Last Link, p. 144.)
The testimony of geology, as adduced by geologists and even by evolutionists, is that it does not sustain the claims of Evolution. Species existed in present form from the earliest times. Geologic species came in suddenly and went out suddenly. Some of the simplest remain unchanged through all earth's transformations to the present time. (Dr. Robert Patterson, Errors of Evolution, p. 221.) The great fossil cemeteries show that the living creatures fell in serried ranks, overtaken by cataclysms, in every act of life. Le Conte tries to explain this by saying that there were "paroxysmal" eras, but what the paroxysms were, or whence they came, he does not say. The whole testimony is against Evolution and reverts to proof of the Bible story of Creation. Professor Adam Sedgwick says: "At succeeding epochs, new tribes of beings were called into existence, not merely as the progeny of those that had appeared before them, but as new and living proofs of creative interference."
THE ARGUMENT FROM CLASSIFICATION OF SPECIES.
This is one of the strong points of Evolution. It is claimed that plants and animals can be so classified in an ascending order that it is evident the higher came out of the lower. We object as follows:
1. There is no classification agreed upon by scientists. This comes largely from want of agreement as to what a species is. Scientists differ widely and radically. Spencer presents a review of all these schemes of classification and ends by saying, "It is absurd to attempt a definite scheme of relationship." His own plan of the scheme he says is the figure of a "laurel bush squashed flat by a descending plane." (Principles of Biology, p. 389.) This agrees with his statement as to the absurdity of such schemes. Some arrange the whole in a continuous straight line from the lowest up.
Darwin thought the whole came from half a dozen germinal forms. Where these came from he did not say. Dr. J. Clark Ridpath said, "The eagle was always an eagle, the man always man. Every species of living organism has I believe come up by a like process from its own primordial germ." (Arena, June, 1879.) Haeckel insists that the theory demands but a single primeval germ as the ancestor of all living things. He presented a tree, showing twenty or more stages between primeval protoplasm and man, but this has been now rejected by evolutionists. Prof. D. Kerfoot Schults represents the classification as follows: "If all the animals that have ever existed on the earth be represented by a tree, those now existing on the earth will be represented by the topmost twigs and leaves, and the extinct forms will be represented by the main trunk and branches." (First Book on Organic Evolution, p. xiv.)
But the source of all, the primeval protoplasm, is wanting. The missing primeval germ or germs leaves the tree without a root, and Prof. Conn tells that even the sub-kingdoms are not united by fossils. Spencer admits that not a single species has been traced to its source or its family tree completed, and even the ancestors of our living species are wanting.
Prof. Dana admitted as follows, "If ever the links (upon which the doctrine of Evolution depends) had an actual existence, their disappearance without a trace left behind is altogether inexplicable." Here then is a tree without root or trunk or branches, and having only the tips of outer twigs and leaves, in other words, a phantom tree, a fit representation of the theory for which it stands.
The present orders of plants and animals give a strong argument against Evolution. It has been seen that Succession is not Evolution. The mere coming of animals in orderly succession shows only plan, but the means of executing that plan is not shown thereby. But further, while in the geologic ages there was Succession, here in our age is Simultaneousness of species, two very different and contradictory phenomena. Why has Succession ceased? Why have not the higher orders pushed the lower out, as in the geologic ages, if Evolution was the cause? Yet here they all exist quietly together as if they knew nothing of Evolution or its requirements.
Nor have any such changes occurred in thousands of years, as the mummied remains of cats and crocodiles and ibises in Egypt show. Surely 4,000 years would show some evolution if there had been such a thing; but it is not seen in all the 4,000 years, or even in the more distant period since primeval man existed, for we have the remains of animals found with man in his early history. Out of 98 species, 57 are the same as we have to-day unchanged, and still others, as the lingula, the same as in ages past. Thus Evolution's trusted argument from Classification utterly fails of demonstration.
DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS.
The distribution of plants and animals is another favorite argument of this theory. Certain animals are said to be found only in certain regions, the bison only in North America, the kangaroo only in Australia, the armadillo only in Mexico. Evolution triumphantly asks, Were they created only in these places? We now simply remark that difficulties as to Creation do not prove Evolution. Evolution says the ancestors of these came from other parts ages ago and by long isolation and environment became what they are.
Facts again are against the theory. Huxley himself says that in the neighborhood of Oxford are animal remains like those of Australia; that Britain was once connected with the continent, and so these animals passed over. The same is true he says of the isolated fauna of New Zealand and South America. (Address in Daily Post, March 27, 1871.)
This argument might be used against Evolution as well as the previous arguments. Two islands in the Pacific, only fifteen miles apart, have the animals of Asia in one and of Australia in the other. One of the Bermudas has lizards like those of Africa and another like those of America. In fact it is evident that animals and plants have scattered widely.
THE MORPHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.
The comparative study of plants and animals presents another argument for Evolution. It is found, for example, that there is a similarity of plan in the fin of the fish, the wing of the bird, the flipper of the whale, the leg of the animal and the arm of the man. So also in a measure with all other corresponding parts. This Evolution says, shows that all these animals are genetically connected and all came from the same ancestors.
Huxley himself replies to this argument in these words, "No amount of purely morphological evidence can suffice to prove that things came into existence in one way rather than another." (Study of Zoology, p. 86.) Another great scientist, Prof. Quatrefages, professor of anthropology in the Museum of Natural Sciences, Paris, writes on this as follows: "Without leaving domain of facts, and only judging from what we know, we can say, that morphology itself justifies the conclusion that one species has never produced another by derivation." Prof. Conn admits, after going through the whole subject with the latest facts, that unless some further explanation can be found, homology does not prove descent. (Evolution of To-day, p. 76.)
This resemblance of parts is just what we should expect in things originating from one intelligent operator, whether Creator or manufacturer. It is found in every factory. The wheel is the same in the wheelbarrow, the cart, carriage and locomotive. In fact, uniformity of plan proves unity in the cause, and not the diversity of chance causes claimed by Evolution. If Evolution were true, there would be as much diversity among organs as there is among the forms of organs. If the operation of chance conditions has resulted in radical changes in the forms of organs, why then is there not this similar diversity among the organs themselves? Evolution has no reply. Creation has such reply; God is one and his plan one. Why should not the forms of all these things be alike, seeing they are to live in the same climates, eat the same food and propagate in the same manner?
The rudimentary, abortive and discarded parts found in some animals form one of the strongest arguments Evolution advances. The favorite instance it presents is found in the horse. The horse walks on one toe and has splints further up the leg, which they tell us are the remains of the other toes, and the callosities on the leg are the remains of thumbs. The remains have been found of an animal as large as a dog which resembles the horse and has two toes, and another older animal, as large as a fox, which has four toes. Putting these side by side, Evolution calls them all horses, and says the one-toed animal came from the two-toed, and he from the four-toed, and that this proves the evolution of the horse from the Eohippus (Old Horse) as it is called.
1. Bearing in mind that this conclusion is pure assumption, and only inference at best, let us remark that it violates the primal law of evolution laid down by Spencer, that of evolution from the simple to the complex. It should have shown first the one-toed horse, then his development into a two-toed animal, and so on up to a horse having five toes. This would be evolution. As it is, we see the opposite of evolution, degradation, which often occurs in nature, and we see few if any instances of any subsequent restoration to primal conditions.
2. Besides all this, that most necessary thing to a good horse, a pedigree, is wanting. The connecting links are all missing in his ancestral tree. For the ancestors of that first of horses are unknown. But he is not alone in this, for even his owner has the same sad want of proven descent, as we will see later. Just how the horse lost his appendages, and why he dropped toe after toe in this extraordinary manner the story leaves untold.
3. But another great objection exists. It takes time to breed horses. It required all of the Tertiary period to produce the one-toed animal from the four-toed ancestor and much longer time was required to develop him from a totally different animal, where more than a mere question of toes comes in. For we have to face the difficulty, and the time necessary, to develop a good horse, say from an alligator, and the still greater task of producing him from an animal without toes at all, or even legs, or anything to hang legs on, and simply a bag of jelly-like substance, which the evolutionist assures us was the ancestor of all horses and their riders. If it appears to the reader that life is too short for such business we can say the geologist agrees with him, for he tells us the age of the old earth itself was not one tenth long enough to produce Evolution's horses, and still less their riders.
Another instance of Evolution's proofs is the swim-bladder of fishes. This Evolution sometimes states is an incipient lung, and that the fish learned in a drought to breathe air. Sometimes, as the need of the theory demands, the swim-bladder is claimed as the relic of a discarded lung. These however are two different and opposing claims. Either as a prophecy or a relic the swim-bladder is fatal to the claims of Evolution. If it is an incipient lung, then here is intention, which Evolution rejects. If a relic, here is retrogression, the opposite of evolution. The abortive organ is one of the difficulties of the theory which Darwin admitted, and Prof. Conn tells us, is not yet answered. Prof. Huxley said, "Either these rudiments are of no use to the animal, in which case they ought to have disappeared, or they are of some use to the animal, in which case they are arguments for teleology." (Darwinism, p. 151.)
THE ARGUMENT FROM EMBRYOLOGY.
Evolution derives its greatest argument from the study of the embryo. It makes three claims. First, that the germ of everything, plant and animal, is the same, neither chemical analysis nor the microscope showing any difference. If therefore, such vast variety could come from origins so alike, why could not all we see come from a similar origin, the primitive animal, which was also such a simple cell? Second, in the growth of the embryo it recapitulates the ancestral history of that particular organism. Third, all this when compared with the geologic record, and the present orders of living things as classified, presents the full succession of the forms of life, the one supplying what the other lacks.
These claims must be examined separately.
1. The claim that the germs of all living things are alike is not true. The resemblance is only superficial. Protoplasm, of which the germ is composed, differs and is not homogeneous material. That which builds the muscles is one kind, and that which builds brain and nerves is entirely different. Prof. Clodd tells us it is not a chemical compound but a mechanism. Nor could the germs be alike. For the plant breathes carbon, the animal oxygen. The one oxidizes, the other deoxidizes. There are still greater and deeper differences.
Tyndall says, "Under the most homogeneous material, there lie structural energies of such complexity, that we must question whether we have the mental elements with which to grapple with them.... The most trained and disciplined imagination retires in bewilderment from the problem. In that realm, inaccessible to everything but mind, the wonders of Creation are wrought out.... Here is determined the germ and afterwards the complete organization." (Fragments of Science, p. 153.) So that these cells or germs, which appear so alike, contain each in itself the entire plan and life of the coming creature, to the color of a feather, the trick of a hunting dog and the smile and dimples of a child.
2. The second claim that the course of each embryo traverses its ancestral history, is not nearly so vociferously made as some years ago. Prof. A. Agassiz writes, "Anything beyond a general parallelism is hopeless." Prof. Conn admits "Embryology alone is not a safe guide, and only when verified by the fossils can it be relied upon. It seldom gives a true history.... The parallel is largely a delusion.... It often gives a false history." (Evolution of To-day, pp. 125, 134, 137, 150.) Prof. Thomson writes, "Recapitulation is due to no dead hands of the past, but to physiological conditions which we are unable to discover." (Outline of Zoology, p. 63.) He also says that the young mammal was never like a worm, a fish, or reptile. It was at the most like the young of these in their various stages. So far from the course of all being alike, Baer says he can tell the difference between the embryo of the common fowl and duck on the second day. (Principles of Biology, p. 1.) So far as this claim holds good, it forms an argument against evolution. For here is a goal or ideal to which all things strive. This is intention, and plan and purpose, all of which is opposed to the main idea of Evolution. It is in line with Creation.
3. The culminating argument for Evolution is given by arranging in ascending classification the geologic orders of life (which we have seen do not appear as Evolution demands), and placing alongside of these the classification of present animals (which we have seen is not agreed upon, and is as diverse as the writers themselves), and then laying alongside of these two artificial arrangements, the embryonic recital (which is now doubted and is often false to the past history), and triumphantly pointing to the three-fold combination. The gaps geology shows are thus filled by present forms and what both lack, by the embryonic recital.
Here are compared three things which radically differ. The geologic record shows progress from lower to higher, although not that complete nor unvarying record necessary to the theory, while the present orders of life exist simultaneously. Both show the existence of separate things having no individual connection. The embryo is a single individual, designed from its conception on a predetermined plan, animated by internal forces, and limited to a certain end and life. It is as Dawson says, a "closed series." The worlds of living and fossil creatures consist of myriads of individuals, under many widely different conditions, and aimed at widely different ends and lives. The two are contradictory for the uses of Evolution.
What we do see in these three facts are three marks of personal intelligence. In embryonic growth we see the plan of production. In the coming of the fossil creatures we see the progress of the plan in historical appearance. In the present display of nature we see the ultimate purpose of the whole. It all forms one great consistent plan and bears all the marks of personal and creative work.
So that summing up the argument from comparison of the three facts, the geologic order, the present classification, and the embryonic growth, we find in the first absolute separation of species, in the second no genetic connection as already shown under that argument, and in the third different phenomena having no points in common with the other two. The whole argument then fails of conclusion and reverts as the former do, to proof against Evolution.
FACTS OPPOSING EVOLUTION OF SPECIES.
A theory to be proven must meet the facts and account for them. The theory in question fails lamentably in this. There are countless facts not only unaccounted for but diametrically opposed to it and antagonizing it. We cite some of these:
1. Degeneration in nature. Nature shows a constant tendency downward. Prof. E. D. Cope, an eminent evolutionist, writes: "The retrogradation in nature is as well or nearly as well established as evolution." The wild varieties of plants and animals are far inferior to the cultivated kinds. The older species are far superior to the present. The saber-toothed tiger is far superior to the present animal. So also is the Mammoth as compared with the elephant. Plants show degeneration in colors. The order of superiority is from yellow, the lowest, to white, pink, red, purple and blue, the highest. When they drop from blue to yellow, it is degeneration. Some now having green flowers once had colored blossoms. Progress is not seen to be upward in the flowers. So also parasitism is degeneration both in plants and animals. The course of nature is not, as it has not been, constant development upward. The scripture statement "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain," describes accurately the condition of nature (Ro. 8:22.)
2. Continued unchanged species for ages. The crustacea, for example in Lake Tanganyika, Africa, remain as the receding ocean left them ages ago.
3. Species instead of increasing in number have decreased. There were 500 species of trilobites. They have all disappeared. There were 900 species of ammonites; all are gone. Of the 450 species of nautilus, only three remain. Indeed whole families have become obliterated. All this is antagonistic to Evolution.
4. Species continue the same under the most diverse environments. Environment is claimed as a cause of the changes demanded by Evolution. But the same species exist in the most diverse regions, e. g., mosquitoes, whales and oaks.
5. Adaptation of one species to another. Darwin says that a single case of the adaptation of one species to another would be fatal to his theory. Yet he himself gives the data for hundreds of such adaptations. He adduces the fact that a hundred head of red clover produced 2,700 seeds. A similar number protected from insects produced none. The fertilization of plants by insects is well known. The Smyrna fig is said to owe its value to its fertilization by the piercing of an insect. Some of these insects have been introduced into California for that purpose. There is an orchid which can be fertilized only by an insect falling into a cup of liquid which the flower has, and escaping through a side opening in which it touches the pollen.
Dr. Andrew Wilson writes: The colors of flowers—nay, even the little splashes of a hue or tint seen on a petal—are intended to attract insects that they may carry off the fertilizing dust, or pollen, to other flowers. It is to this end also that your flowers are many of them sweet-scented. The perfume is another kind of invitation to the insect world. The honey they secrete forms a third attraction—the most practical of all.
6. Complex adjustments of nature. Evolution in vain attempts to account for the wonderful complex adjustments we see in nature, such as the mimicry of animals and plants; the walking stick so closely resembles a twig that it deceives the closest observer. The withered leaf butterfly, with spots and wrinkles, is exactly like the thing it imitates. This is true also of the leaf butterfly and of another which exactly resembles a bird's dropping. Evolution cannot account for the ventriloquism of insects, such as the cricket and tree toad; the battery of the electric eel; the beauty of insects and fish and shells and birds and flowers, especially the harmony of their colors. Edible insects are plainly colored, the poisonous kinds highly colored. Some butterflies have "scare-heads" on their wings, exactly resembling an owl's head, and other insects have similar frightful appearances which they thrust out when attacked. All this tells of design and interest and often has the appearance of humor in the creation of these numerous creatures.
7. The mathematical adjustments of nature are as exact as the multiplication table. Illustrations of this are the accuracy of the orbits of the heavenly bodies and the law of gravitation. The growth of the cell proceeds on geometrical progression in the division of parts into 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. The climbing plants form their coils with mathematical accuracy and proportion. The proportions in which chemicals will mix is mathematically fixed.
Prof. Tyndall thus calls our attention to crystallization: "By permitting alum to crystallize in this slow way we obtain these perfect octahedrons; by allowing carbonate of lime to crystallize, nature produces these beautiful rhomboids; when silica crystallizes we have formed the hexagonal prisms capped at the end by pyramids; by allowing saltpeter to crystallize, we have these prismatic masses, and when carbon crystallizes we have the diamond." (Fragments of Science, p. 357.) "Looking at it mentally we see the molecules [of sulphate of soda] like disciplined squadrons under a governing eye, arranging themselves into battalions, gathering around distinct centers and forming themselves into distinct solid masses, which after a time assume the visible shape of the crystal now held in my hand. Here then is an architect at work, who makes no chips nor din, and who is now building the particles into crystals similar in shape to these beautiful masses we see upon the table." (Belfast Address.)
8. The structure of living things shows the true principles of architecture. A Mr. McLaughlin, a noted Scotch mathematician, tried by mathematical calculation to ascertain the shape of a building which would contain the most room with least material and yet embody the greatest architectural strength in its retaining walls. After many laborious calculations, he found after he had arrived at a conclusion that the honey bee had long before given the same plan of structure in its cell. The human skull is a true dome, and the spinal column a true pillar. The ribs of the ship are copied from the fish, the yacht from the duck, and its deep fin from the fish.[2]
Evolution pretends to account for every one of these facts by chance changes, extending through countless ages as has already been shown in its amazing account of the origin of legs, eyes, backbones and other members. Surely this is an appeal to credulity! The faith of the Christian is sometimes taxed but what shall we say of the faith of the evolutionist? Which is more credible, the simple account of miraculous creation or this long, involved and absolutely unseen and unknown process?
9. The age of the earth. Prof. George Frederick Wright, the geologist, tells us that geologic time is not one-hundredth part as long as it was supposed to be fifty years ago, and the popular writers who glibly talk of the antiquity of man are behind the times and ignorant of the new light which as a flood has come from geology.[3]
Summing up the case, Prof. Francis M. Balfour tells us: "All these facts that fall under our observation contradict the crude ideas of those so-called naturalists, who state that one species can be transmitted into another in the course of generations." So also Sir David Brewster declares: "We have absolute proof of the immutability of species, whether we search for it in historic or geologic times."
Dr. Etheridge, the famous English authority on fossils, says: "Nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by fact. Men adopt a theory and then strain their facts to support it. I read all their books, but they make no impression on my belief in the stability of species. Some men are ready to regard you as a fool if you do not go with them in all their vagaries, but this museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their views."
CHAPTER IV.
THE EVOLUTION OF MAN.
The central point in the whole theory is the descent of man from the brute. It is this which, as stated, gives it importance to the Christian. But for this, the hypothesis would be but a curious scientific theory. It is a matter of comparatively minor interest how the universe or the various species came. It is only because these theories are used to assert the animal origin of man that they are dealt with here.
It is in this claim as to the origin of man that all the various theories of Evolution agree, however they may vary in other matters, and, as this is the vital point, these theories are considered as one in this discussion. This is a question merely of fact. Did or did not man descend from the brute or was he specially and divinely created? This is the question in a nut-shell. The two accounts are as follows placed side by side. Darwin's account is accepted substantially by all evolutionists.
THE BIBLE ACCOUNT.
(Gen. i:26, 27; ii:7; v:1, 2.)
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.... And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.... And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.... In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him: male and female created he them; and blessed them and called their name Adam."
EVOLUTION'S ACCOUNT.
(From Darwin's Descent of Man, ii, 372.)
"Man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arborial in its habits and an inhabitant of the Old World. This creature, if its whole structure had been examined by a naturalist, would have been classed among the Quadrumana, as surely as would the common and still more ancient progenitor of the Old and New World monkeys. The Quadrumana and all the higher mammals are probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal, and this through a long line of diversified forms, either from some reptile-like, or some amphibian-like creature, and this again from some fish-like animal. In the dim obscurity of the past, we can see that the early progenitor of the Vertebrata must have been an aquatic animal, provided with branchia, with the two sexes united in the same individual."
The Bible account is circumstantial, with mention of places and rivers of undoubted historical character. It is accepted by subsequent Scripture writers and made the basis of their historical and spiritual teachings. The evolutionary account is lacking in all of this. There are no exact data nor any attempt to give any. No description save an imaginary one is ever given. As no one was there to see, the whole is fanciful.
The two accounts are utterly irreconcilable. Whatever the Scripture account means it does not mean Evolution, and literary justice demands that we do not impose upon a writer a meaning he did not intend or give.
Prof. Pfliederer writes, "There is only one choice. When we say Evolution we definitely deny Creation. When we say Creation we definitely deny Evolution." Prof. James Sully says, "The doctrine of Evolution is directly antagonistic to that of Creation." (Bible Student, July, 1901, quoted by Prof. Warfield.)
How anyone can accept both accounts passes all understanding. The late Dr. John Henry Barrows, president of Oberlin University, tells of meeting a Hindu boy in his visit to India, who had attended the mission schools and learned there the shape and situation of the earth. He had of course previously been taught the Hindu cosmogony that the earth was surrounded by salt water and that by a circle of earth and that by successive circles of buttermilk, sweet cane juice, and other "soft drinks" with intervening circles of land. Dr. Barrows asked the boy which belief he would hereafter hold. He replied that he would believe both. This might be possible to the Hindu boy, but it surpasses all previous intellectual feats that any intelligent person can accept both the Bible account and Darwin's account of the creation of man.
We will review the arguments for and against the evolutionary account of the origin of man from the following spheres and subjects:
1. The Argument from the Evolution of Species. 2. From Similarity of Structure in Animals and Man. 3. Rudimentary Organs in Man. 4. Human Characteristics in Animals. 5. History of the Evolution of Man from the Brute. 6. The "Missing Link." 7. The Brain. 8. Man's Mind and Consciousness. 9. Language. 10. Pre-historic Man. 11. Antiquity of Man. 12. Savage Races. 13. History of Mankind. 14. Religion. 15. Ethics. 16. Christian Experience. 17. Christ.
1. ARGUMENT FROM THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
On this argument rests the theory of man's animal origin. But for the desire to prove that such is man's origin, the argument would never have been conceived. We introduce it here again to call special attention to this fact. We have seen that there is decided difference of opinion on this theory; that many object to it; that there is not a single case of such origin of species known; that there is no law or force or cause agreed upon or known by which such origin of species could take place; that there are countless objections and facts against it; that its arguments are confessedly insufficient; and they are at best but inferences and only "the balancing of probabilities."
If therefore the proofs of the Origin of Species are wanting the whole theory of Evolution falls in ruins to the ground. There would seem no need to proceed further. Yet Evolution lightly steps over the ruins of its previous claims and proceeds to further assertions. Some of the greatest of the exact scientists stop here. Prof. Dana, the great geologist, says: "Man's origin has thus far no sufficient explanation from science. The abruptness of transition from preceding forms is most extraordinary and especially because it occurs so near the present time." (Elements of Geology.)
Prof. Virchow, the most eminent pathologist of Europe, wrote as follows: "There always exists a sharp line of demarcation between man and the ape. We cannot pronounce it proved by science that man descends from the ape, or from any other animal. Whoever calls to mind the lamentable failure of all attempts made very recently to discover a decided support for the 'generatio aequivoc' in the lower forms of transition from the inorganic to the organic world will feel it doubly serious to demand that this theory, so utterly discredited, should be in any form accepted as the basis of our views of life."
Many more such expressions might be quoted from eminent scientists to the same effect. But as we will use these under the respective heads of the foregoing order of argument, we pass on here to the arguments as stated.
2. SIMILARITY OF STRUCTURE IN ANIMALS AND MAN.
It is well known that the internal and external form of man is like that of the lower animals. This, Evolution claims, is an argument for genetic connection. The same argument would prove that a locomotive was born from a stage coach, and that from a cart, and that from a wheelbarrow. Similarity of structure proves only uniformity of design. An intelligent maker of any nature would so operate, and man himself so manufactures now. Why should not God make man on the model of the lower animals, seeing he is to live in the same world, under the same conditions, eat the same food and propagate in the same way? There is no reason for departure from a form which has proved useful and appropriate. All the parts in the human form have been thus tested in the lower forms and found right for their purpose and are now, as we would expect, applied to man. Man is the climax of all. All is for his use in the lower worlds of plants and animals; then why not use their frame and inner organs also? The mechanic uses the same appliance such as the wheel in his most complex construction as well as in the simplest engine.
But there are parts in the human frame not found in the lower orders. Wallace, one of the greatest evolutionists, says the soft human skin cannot be accounted for by natural causes, nor the valves in the human veins which are in different position from those of the brute, nor the human foot nor larynx, nor the human voice, especially the female voice, nor the absence of hair on the body, nor why man is short armed and long legged, while his ape-man ancestor is the reverse. Many more such problems vex the evolutionist. Creation accounts for all this, and does so by one simple, sweeping argument in place of Evolution's complex and bewildering maze of speculations.
Ruskin teaches us in this extract that God works by law and does not deviate therefrom even where it seems to us that He might have wrought differently: "But God shows us in Himself, strange as it may seem, not only authoritative perfection, but even the perfection of obedience, an obedience to his own laws; and in the cumbrous movement of those unwieldiest of His creatures, we are reminded, even in His divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in the human creature, 'that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.'" (Seven Lamps of Architecture, II., p. 78.)
3. RUDIMENTARY ORGANS IN MAN.
Evolution points to certain features in man which it claims came from his brute ancestry, such as the long hairs in the eyebrow, which they say came from the ape-man, the tips of the ear, and the hair on the forearm, which slants from the hand to the elbow. The whole outside ear is also claimed as a relic from that brute and is unnecessary for hearing. So also of the five toes when a solid foot would have been better, although most of us think not. They also point to some evidences of a tail which they say was rubbed off when the ape-man learned to sit down. This, however, many apes do now with no signs of decreasing tails. Many internal members and organs are pointed to, which are too numerous here to mention. One instance is as good as the whole catalogue, and one reply also.
All this proves too much for the theory. Here is the loss of useful organs and the survival of others not needed. This is not evolution, at least not the kind we have been asked to build our hopes upon for progress. Further, these so-called "relics of the brute" are counted as having no use save to support Evolution. The "gill-slits" in the neck of the human embryo are the favorite instance of this kind of fact. Haeckel and, after him others, picture the forms of fish, dog and man in embryonic state, and say in triumph, There is proof of the descent of the man from the dog and of him from the fish; and this resemblance has survived to tell the tale, there being no other use for it. But this is not the only feature that "survives." Heads and mouths and eyes also "survive." Why are these not pointed to as proofs of descent? Because we can see use for them, while there appears to be no use for the "gill-slits" except to prove Evolution. If we could see some use in the "gill-slits" in the neck of the embryo, the argument of Evolution would fall to the ground. Evolution's argument from the gill-slits and all other "relics of the brute" rests therefore on ignorance, a very unsafe foundation for a scientific theory, for knowledge is constantly increasing, especially of the human frame, and there is not the slightest doubt, reasoning from analogy and past experience, that there is use for these peculiar embryonic features.
We repeat the argument of Huxley as to these rudimentary parts: "Either these rudiments are of no use, in which case they should have disappeared; or they are of use, in which case they are arguments for teleology." (Darwinism and Design, p. 151.)
Evidences of this nature are of that kind called circumstantial, and in law are least relied upon, for on such evidence some innocent men have been hung. Shall we condemn the whole race to a bestial origin on the same evidence? All arguments founded on such facts are weak, puerile and unworthy of scientists. No wonder that Prof. Paulsen said Haeckel's speculations are "a disgrace to the philosophy of Germany." Shall we suspend a philosophy of the universe upon a few long hairs? Shall we allow the guess as to the origin of the tip of the outer ear to revolutionize theology? Shall we risk our eternal destiny on the supposed uselessness of the so-called "gill-slits" in premature puppies? Yet this is the demand of Evolution reduced to plain English.
4. HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS IN ANIMALS.
The human characteristics found in animals form an argument for Evolution. We find the animals have memory, love, hatred, jealousy; that they can think and plan, use means and weapons, admire things of beauty, and some have sports. All of this, so Evolution claims, points to genetic connection with man. But all this only shows uniformity in the inner as in the outer being. There is as much reason for the one as for the other. Life is the same wherever we find it. The forces which operate in the rain drop are the same as in the universe of boundless space. The intellectual nature of man is the same as that of angels who have no genetic connection with us. Even devils are the same in the intellectual nature as God himself. Mind is the same thing wherever it exists. To say therefore that because animals have certain characteristics like those of man, they are the ancestors of man, is a leap to a conclusion entirely unwarranted by either facts or logic. Yet it is on such conclusions that Evolution rests. Creation would proceed on the same comprehensive plan, and we have seen that man does also. He applies his forces as he does his materials to the most varied uses.
Nor has any instance of the development of a brute or his faculties to any approach to man's faculties ever been known. The highest animal is still immeasurably below the lowest and most bestial man, not only in the grade of the faculties that they have in common, but in others which the animal does not possess and cannot acquire. There is a great gulf fixed which they do not pass over—as our next section will show.
5. HISTORY FROM THE BRUTE TO THE MAN.
Many have essayed the relation of the story of the change from the brute to the man. In doing so, some have covered themselves with ridicule, yet the attempts continue to be made as do others to produce perpetual motion. To bridge this chasm is necessary in order to sustain Evolution, for this is the heart of the question. It is said that a famous professor of history abandoned his chair because of the uncertainty of the facts of history. One would expect that the attempt to relate what happened before man had any history, or even existed, would be even more hazardous. Yet we are given the account with such assurance as sometimes to deceive the very elect—who abandon their Bibles. Haeckel's attempt was the most impressive, and swept all before it, for a year or two. He presented a many-branched tree, whose roots were protoplasm, its trunk protozoa, its successive branches sponges, fish, reptiles, birds, marsupials, monkeys, apes, man-apes, and the topmost branches, man. Of the twenty-one stages, half have been proved to be "wrong" by evolutionists and the rest are "doubtful."
The home of the primeval man, or ascending-ape, whichever it or he was, is one of the difficult facts to settle. Haeckel locates it at the bottom of the Indian ocean. He can thus defy disproof. Another says it was in the tropics somewhere. This is also a safe assertion. The difficulty is that the remains of the pre-historic man are found in the northern regions, while the ancestor animal was a denizen of the tropics. So another declares that the original home was in the northern regions, to which a pair of wild animals of the ancestor kind were driven by something or somebody, and their retreat cut off, and so they were forced to the life in caves and adopted the habits we find among cave dwellers.
But although our ancestor cannot be located we are told just who and what he was. Thus Prof. Edward Clodd, an authoritative evolutionist, tells us in his book, "The Making of a Man," as follows: "Whichever among the arboreal creatures possessed any favorable variation, however slight, of brain or sense organ, would secure an advantage over less favored rivals in the struggle for food and mates and elbow room. The qualities which gave them success would be transmitted to their offspring. The distance in one generation would be increased in the next; brain power conquering brute force and skill outwitting strength. While some for awhile remained arboreal in their habits, never moving easily on the ground, although making some approach to upright motion, as seen in the shambling gait of the manlike apes, others developed a way of walking on their hind legs, which entirely set free the fore limbs as organs of handling and throwing. Whatever were the conditions which permitted this, the advantage which it gives is obvious. It was the making of a man." (p. 126.)
It seems difficult, indeed unfair, to take this seriously. We must assure the reader that the author of this description shows no intention of humor either here or elsewhere in his work, or indeed any consciousness of it. All is given in perfect sobriety. We must therefore accept it as a profound scientific deliverance of the most authoritative kind and deal with it accordingly, and believe that walking on the hind legs and throwing things with the fore limbs was "the making of a man." How easily men are made!
1. This argument rests on the theory of Natural Selection now discarded by most evolutionists.
2. Apes have done all he here claims and far more. The chimpanzee has been taught to sit at a table, to drink out of cups, to eat with a knife and fork, to wipe his mouth with a napkin and use a toothpick, but has got no further in the ways of good society, and as to increase of cranial development, has obtained none save as the effects of undue potations have produced an enlarged feeling.
3. The whole account is purely imaginary as no professor of Evolution was there to observe the facts. It is in short an intrusion into the realm of fiction, which clearly belongs to Mr. Kipling in his wonderful jungle stories.
Again in his book on "Man and His Ancestor," (p. 67.) Prof. Morris gives us a full description of this unseen and purely hypothetical ancestor as follows: "It was probably much smaller than existing man, little if any more than four feet in height, and not more than half the weight of man. Its body was covered, though not profusely, with hair; the hair of the head being woolly or frizzly in texture and the face provided with a beard. The face was not jet black, like a typical African, but of a dull brown color; the hair being somewhat similar in color. The arms were long and lank, the back being much curved, the chest flat and narrow, the abdomen protruding, the legs rather short and bowed, the walk a waddling motion somewhat like that of the gibbon. It had deep set eyes, greatly protruding mouth with gaping lips, huge ears and general "ape-like aspect." Prof. John Fiske thought it was much more than a million years since man diverged from the brute. During an active geologic age before the cave-man appeared on the scene, "a being erect upon two legs and having the outward resemblance of a man wandered hither and thither upon the face of the earth." (Destiny of Man, p. 55.)
We read all this with astonishment that anyone could penetrate the dim vista of millions of years ago and transcribe such a detailed and circumstantial account of what then existed. It reads like a picture from life. Yet not only was the writer not there, but no one else was present, for this was the father of us all, according to Evolution.
We are told that, given time enough, all this series of changes from the primeval cell to the modern philosopher or scientist is possible. But time for this is limited by the age of the earth. For Lord Kelvin has stated that only a few million years are possible on any calculation and this would all be needed for the change from ape to man to say nothing of the interminable ages necessary for the change from the protozoa to the fish and then to land animals and so on to mammals and up to the ape.
The after life of the ape-man is described with the same circumstantiality as the coming to manhood's estate. Dr. Robert Patterson combines the various features of Evolution's description and this creature's history in the following extract: "It is a fearful and wonderful picture they give us of the origin of marriage from the battles of baboons, of the rights of property established by terrible fights for groves of good chestnuts, of the beginning of morals from the instincts of brutes, and of the dawnings of religion, or rather of superstition, from the dreams of these animals; the result of the whole being that civilization and society and law and order and religion are all simply the evolution of the instincts of the brutes and that there is no necessity for the invoking any supernatural interference to produce them." (Fables of Infidelity.)
It is here we meet the "theistic" account of the origin of man. It was to this creature we are told God imparted a soul or spirit supernaturally. For this strange creature was the Adam of theistic Evolution. Eve they say nothing about. Nor are we told how or when the soul was imparted, whether in a single animal, a pair, or a herd; whether awake or asleep. Nor are we told what they did next, or how the soul-ape got along with the rest of the species. Nor are we told what particular state, or act, or habit, entitled him to the new nature he received. It seems as if the ability to "stand on the hind legs and throw things with the fore limbs," which Prof. Clodd tells us was the "making of a man," scarcely entitled him to such a divine inheritance as an immortal soul.
This also was the Adam who fell according to the theistic evolutionist, though how such a creature could "fall" seems difficult to conceive. It was this thing whose sin, Paul tells us, brought death on the whole race. It was this who is a type of Christ who is "the Second Adam." Out and out Evolution has but a fraction of the difficulties, either physical or spiritual, to face that this make-shift compromise "theistic" theory has before it. It is not surprising that the thorough-going evolutionist rejects this strange compound of fiction and theology.
We appeal to the common, every-day man of fair judgment: Which takes more faith, or if preferred, credulity, the accepting of that strange, complex, unauthenticated account of man's origin or the simple and, with an omnipotent God in mind, entirely possible account of the Bible? "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul." Which is the more noble, the more satisfying to our desires for a high and divine origin as well as high and divine destiny?
6. THE MISSING LINK.
The Missing Link is the great desideratum of Evolution, for the evolutionist indignantly disclaims the present apes or monkey as ancestors. He tells us the connecting link was a creature superior to these. But of which he is unable to show any specimen. It is purely mythical. We have the remains of millions of animals reaching through all the ages and why is this particular specimen wanting?
Dr. Rudolph Virchow, the great discoverer of the germ theory, has for thirty years, according to Haeckel, "opposed the theory of man's descent from the brute." (Last Link, p. 27.) He himself says: "The intermediate form is unimaginable save in a dream.... We cannot teach or consent that it is an achievement that man has descended from the ape or other animal." (Homiletic Review, January, 1901.)
Dr. Friedrich Pfaff, professor of natural sciences in the University of Erlangen, writes on the question as follows: "Nowhere in the older deposits is an ape that approximates more closely to man, or man that approximates more closely to an ape, or perhaps a man at all. The same gulf which is found to-day between man and the ape goes back with undiminished breadth and depth to the tertiary period. This fact alone is sufficient to make its unintelligibleness clear to every one who is not penetrated by the conviction of the infallibility of the theory of the gradual transmutation of and progressive development of all organized creatures. If, however, we now find one of the most man-like apes (gibbon) in the tertiary period, and this species is still in the same low grade, and side by side with it, at the end of the ice period, man is found in the same high grade as to-day, the ape not having approximated more nearly to man, and modern man not having become further removed from the ape than the first man, every one who is in a position to draw a right conclusion can infer, that the facts contradict a theory of constant progression, development and ceaselessly increasing variation from generation to generation, as surely as it is possible to do." (Age and Origin of Man, Am. Tr. Soc., p. 52.)
From time to time the discovery of the "missing link" is announced and telegraphed through the civilized world, only to be remanded to its place among the remains of brutes or men. We will consider the instances of such as they have been presented:
1. The Calaveras Skull now in the California State Museum. This has been shown recently to be a hoax. It was placed in a mine shaft 150 feet deep, by Mr. R. C. Scribner, a storekeeper at the mine, as a practical joke. This he lately acknowledged to the Rev. W. H. Dyer, of Los Angeles, a clergyman of the Episcopal church.
2. The Neanderthal Skull. This was found in 1856 in Prussia. It had narrow receding forehead and thick ridges over the eyes. It was claimed by the evolutionists as from two to three hundred thousand years old. Dr. Meyer of Bonn examined the evidence, and found it to be the skull of a Cossack killed in 1814. Many other scientists agreed with him. (Bible Science and Faith, p. 278.)
3. The Colorado specimen. Prof. Stephen Bowers of the Mineralogical and Geological Survey of California, gives this account of another such discovery: "A few years ago the newspapers contained an account of the discovery of a skeleton in Colorado, by a Columbia College professor, which he was pleased to call the 'missing link' between man and the apes. He gave this remarkable creature an antiquity of a million and a half of years. The friable bones were carefully wrapped in cotton and shipped east. But scarcely had the learned professor gotten away with his prize when certain cowboys came forward and claimed the bones to be that of a pet monkey which they buried but a dozen years previously."
4. The late find of skeletons at Croatia, Austria, is heralded as the discovery of a connecting link. But these are skeletons of men and not of brutes. They are degraded men and nothing is better known than the possibility of degeneracy in man. We have degenerates now with all the peculiarities of these low specimens, retreating brows and jaws and flat faces. Degeneracy does not prove evolution. While the shape of these skulls is low and long it has not been shown that their cubical capacity is much less than that of normal man.
5. The Pithecanthropus Erectus. This is the most popular relic with Evolution. It consists of a piece of a skull from the eyes upward, a leg bone and two teeth. These were found in Java by Dr. von Eugene Du Bois in 1891. The cubic measurement of the skull is 60 inches, the same as that of an idiot, that of a normal man being 90 inches, and of an ape 30. These specimens were found at separate places and times. The skull is too small for the thigh bone. The age of the strata in which they were found is uncertain. Authorities are divided as to the nature of these. Haeckel admits that the belief that this is the missing link is strongly combatted by some distinguished scientists. At the Leyden congress, it was attacked by the illustrious pathologist Rudolph Virchow.
The assumptions based upon this specimen and necessary for evidence are as follows: First, that it is as old as claimed, a hundred thousand years at least, or a million as stated by some. Second, that these bones belong to the same individual. Third, that they are the remains of a full-grown individual. Fourth, that they are the remains of a human or semi-human being. Fifth, that they are not the remains of an idiot whose capacity the brain represents.
With all these unproven assumptions, and against the opinion of many of the finest scientists in Europe, Haeckel and some evolutionists have declared this is the missing link. They place this piece of a skull of one creature upon this leg of another and insert these teeth belonging to a third, all so far separated in life that they probably did not even know each other, and rechristen the whole "Pithecanthropus Erectus," which may be freely translated "The ape that walked like a man," being thus the first that arrived at that point which Prof. Clodd tells us was "the making of a man." And this specimen is Haeckel's Last Link, and this he says demonstrates the truth of Evolution.
The evidence of bones and other remains is now generally suspected. It has been found that even in the case of recent remains, as in criminal trials, experts are often unable to decide whether they are human or brute, recent or remote, and what part of the frame they occupied. It is said that Wallace, the great cotemporary with Darwin in the promotion of the theory, now admits there is no evidence of an evolutionary link between man and the lower animals.
7. THE ARGUMENT FROM THE BRAIN.
The brain forms the principal difference between man's body and the brute's. The brain is especially used as proof by the evolutionist. It is the organ of mind. Its size corresponds with the intellectual state of the creature. It is the theory of Evolution that there was an increase in the size of the brain in some of the man-apes of that day, although none such is seen now.
Prof. Edward Clodd thus describes these supposed brain changes after the Ice Age: "The changes by which he met these new conditions were in a very small degree physical. They were almost wholly mental. The principal physical change was in the growth of the brain and the expansion of the cranium, giving rise to a less bestial physiognomy and an advanced mental power." (Man and His Ancestor, p. 181.)
How could man adapt himself by increasing the size of his brain? Why should the passing away of the ice age increase the size of the brain? However, he disposes of the whole matter, after arguing through pages of supposition and assumption, by stating, "The absence of facts forces us to confine ourselves largely to suggestions and probabilities." (Making of a Man, p. 188.) But probabilities are not science and we have a right to ask from those claiming to be scientists actual facts and not guesses, for so great an assertion as the descent of man from the brute.
The capacity of the ape brain is 30, of the human 90 cubic inches. There is no evidence of change in either the ape or the man. The prehistoric man has as good a head on his shoulders as his modern descendants. Bruner says the most ancient skulls even exceed ours. Dr. Pfaff says the stone age men are equal to the present generation. So if education does not increase the size of man's brain, why should the new tricks of Prof. Clodd's ancient "arboreal creature" enlarge that individual's brain 200 per cent? On the other hand, the ape of to-day and the ape of 3,000 years ago as mummied and preserved in Egypt are the same. The big-brained ape of Evolution has unaccountably disappeared and even his skull is missing.
8. MAN'S MIND AND CONSCIOUSNESS.
Evolution claims that all man's faculties have been derived from the brute, as was his physical frame. It is fair to say that this is met at the door by the protest of some of the greatest scientists, themselves sympathetic with Evolution.
Prof. John Fiske wrote on the origin of mind: "We can say when mind came on the scene of evolution, but we can say neither whence nor why.... It is not only inconceivable how mind should have been produced from matter, but it is inconceivable that it should have been produced from matter." (Darwinism, pp. 63, 69.) Prof. Dana has said, "The present teaching of geology is that man is not of nature's making.... Independently of such evidences, man's high reason, his unsatisfied longings, aspirations, his free will, all afford the fullest assurance that he owes his existence to the special act of the Infinite Being whose image he bears." (Geologic Story, p. 290.)
Prof. George H. Howison writes on this theme: "To make evolution the ground of the existence of mind in man, is destructive to the reality of the human person and therefore, of the entire world of moral good and of unqualified truth." (Limits of Evolution, p. 6.) Lord Kelvin, the most eminent living scientist, wrote in a letter to the London Times, "Every action of human free will is a miracle to physical and chemical and mathematical science."
9. LANGUAGE.
Evolution has long tried to create an argument for the derivation of man's speech from the cries of animals. This is met however by the philologist with positive denial. Prof. Max Mueller says: "There is one barrier which no one has yet ventured to touch,—the barrier of language. Language is our Rubicon and no brute will dare to cross it.... No process of Natural Selection will ever distill significant words out of the notes of birds and animals." (Lessons on the Science of Language, pp. 23, 340, 370.)
False claims have been made for the languages of savage people and ancient races. Darwin said that the people of Terra del Fuego were the lowest in the scale, so far as discovered, and their language correspondingly crude. But further investigation shows that they have 32,430 words; over twice as many as Shakespeare used. The language of some of the tribes of the Congo is described by a missionary as more complex than Greek. The history of languages shows the same want of evidence for an evolutionary origin. The oldest forms are the most complex. Modern Greek and Latin are simpler than the ancient forms. English is an improvement in this respect on the old Anglo Saxon, whose grammatical forms it has largely cast off and reduced the language to greater simplicity.
A scientist is now endeavoring to ascertain the speech of monkeys. He has ascertained that these animals have different sounds for different wants, a fact as to other creatures that he could have ascertained by a visit to the nearest poultry yard. The hen has as many calls as the monkey, and as many meanings too. Her call for food is one sound. Her cry of alarm at a passing hawk is another, and her brood perfectly understands all, and without previous education. All animals and birds, and many insects too, have sounds with meaning in them, but language is another matter.
10. PREHISTORIC MAN.
The remains of early races form an argument used by Evolution. These remains are found in many places in caves and are accompanied by tools of stone and vessels of pottery and the remains of animals. These degraded peoples are pointed to by Evolution as man in a state of development.
If the preceding arguments were well founded this would appear reasonable enough. But in view of the fallacious character of the prior reasoning, we must halt at this claim. There are many and conclusive reasons for rejecting this unproven claim. For it is unproven. It is only inference and assumption.
1. These men of the cave do not necessarily represent man in a course of progress, for we find to-day the same classes of people with their stone tools and pottery and living as prehistoric man lived. There to-day exist men in every stage of the supposed progress from the cave man to the highest in civilization. Such remains could be had in any burial place of these savage peoples. Prehistoric man, so-called, is still with us and we can interview him as to his state and history.
2. We have seen that modern man has not developed in brain capacity above prehistoric man. It is also true that he has not developed physically. Dana tells us that the skeleton found at Mentone compares favorably with the best modern men. Indeed we have degenerated in many respects. We have almost lost the sense of smell as compared with savage peoples or even animals. Our teeth are certainly not improving. If we are to find perfect specimens we do not look at the most advanced classes but to the reverse. Those who live to extreme old age are generally in the lowly ranks. But why has physical development ceased at all? Why are there not some superior beings by this time? But alas, there are no marks or indications of wings or halos on either the great saints or scientists of the day.
We are told that while physical evolution has ceased among men, evolution now works along mental lines of progress. This is a radical shifting of the ground of evolution, for heretofore all this has been not only omitted but discarded. If evolution is anything, it is physical. Nor does Evolution give any account of the causes of the stoppage of physical development and the change to mental evolution. We will also show later that this supposed progress has not been such as claimed.
11. ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
Evolution asserts that a vast antiquity for man has been proven by remains that have been found. It is commonly said that these remains are hundreds of thousands of years old. But the claims for these vast periods are now being greatly reduced and generally discredited. Dr. Zahm says of these speculations: "We could not give a better illustration of the extremes to which the unguided human intellect is subject than the vacillating and extravagant notions of the antiquity of man." (Bible Science and Faith, p. 315.) The age of the peat beds of Abbeville, in France, in which human remains were found, was once estimated at 20,000 years. The estimate has been reduced to a fifth of that age. The remains of the animals found with man are supposed to prove his extreme antiquity. The remains of the mammoth were once cited as such proof. But the mammoth has been found in such a state of preservation that its flesh has been fed to the dogs.